


Unexpected Adventures

by AboardAMoose



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Chronic Pain, Disabled Character, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Massage, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:22:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21891127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AboardAMoose/pseuds/AboardAMoose
Summary: Essek finds himself fighting side by side with the Mighty Nein, and revealing more than he intended to Caleb as he does so.
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 10
Kudos: 241





	1. Chapter 1

It had been decades since he’d fought like this. Frenetically. Frantically. Freely.

Life and death decisions were commonplace enough. At the foot of his Queen’s throne, at his Den Mother’s side, in the deep halls of the Lucid Bastion and the alleyways of the Conservatory, mortality was his currency and constant threat. Arteries sliced with signatures. Final breaths stolen with a gesture and a nod no different to those which summoned breakfast to him. In return, a single wrong step in Rosohna’s daily diplomatic dance would mean his own end, and the shadows of any building could hide the tearstained knives of revenge.

But this. The brute ferocity of an angered beast. As dangerous as his city’s politics, yes. As monstrous, perhaps. But so delightfully simple. Its motivations unencumbered by the twin complexities of intelligence and history – just rage and hunger.

An enemy that demanded as much quick thinking, second by second, as in the battle of words that echoed through the Bright Queen’s Halls. But this challenge required only one possible solution. No debate, no nights of brooding, no decades of accumulated intrigue to unravel. Just a simple death, the might of one force against the other. Yet still the danger, the thrill, and the pounding of blood in his ears.

“Fjord, duck!” “Traveller please!” “Gottverdammt!” “Eldritch blast!”

To Essek’s left, the highspeed whirr of a serrated lollipop sheared through the air. To his right, the blaze of Caleb’s flame roared, close enough to chap his skin. A blur of blue was all he could see of Beauregard, evidence of the goblin Nott was clear only in the bolts that peppered the scaly, dung-encrusted, bloodslick skin of the creature they fought. Crackling energy burst from the hands of the half-orc Fjord and the staff of the fascinatingly tall firbolg, while Yasha carved cleanly through the monster’s flesh.

A chaos of shouting instruction, prayers, spells – and screams. The deafening bellow of the flailing creature as it surged against the proximity of its end. Its tail swept through the snow to knock Caduceus from his feet. Its horns caught the whirling Beauregard in a lucky strike, goring the girl and flinging her through the air with a violent toss of the head that would have snapped up their other cleric too had the form not merely been an illusion.

Essek had already been reaching for a shard of black ivory when the crack of the monk girl’s spine reverberated through the frigid mountain air. For one precious moment, one fraction of a breath, he fumbled. In that instant of weakness, of distraction, of memory – the barbed tail, huge as a treetrunk and solid as rock, came for him.

Pain. Breath exploded from his lungs as the force of a townhouse falling collided with his back. Hovering, he had resistance against the Earth to prevent him crashing into it. But that only kept him from hitting the ground, it did nothing to stop him flying backwards.

Fire in his nerves, blinding. Another moment too long.

When he mastered himself, the creature was raging, trampling. The Mighty Nein’s formation had scattered. There was also, inexplicably, a mammoth.

Essek’s hand trembled as he forced his arm to extend, as he summoned the reserves of power he possessed, as he poured spell after spell towards the creature’s demise, tearing holes in its reality one after another. By the time he’d soared level with Caleb once more, the noises issuing from the monster were unearthly – but still it thrashed and lashed out for its survival.

“Can you hold it?” Essek demanded of the other arcanist.

In the fray, Caleb paused not at all. Calm and clear. “Nein. I can slow it.”

“That might be enough.”

The strange human didn’t question why, didn’t hesitate. The sweat-stained, soot-smeared child of the Dwendalian Empire took the word of Leylas Kryn’s Shadowhand on trust and pulled a jar of molasses from his pouch.

The magical effect was similar to one of Essek’s own spells but its origins and mechanisms foreign. His prodigious mind automatically tracked and logged the motion that channelled control from Caleb’s hands to the beast’s muscles, halving the pace of their contractions. Less elegant than slowing the field of time the creature inhabited as a Dunamantic mage might have, but nevertheless effective. 

With the obscene, horned head slowed it was Essek’s turn to cast. Focusing on the space where the creature’s brain must be, he threw his arcane energy into creating a new gravitational centre within its skull, doubling, tripling the mass then multiplying it by greater and greater factors as the seconds ticked by. But the monster’s head swung away, dropping towards the ground even with its magical restraint.

Perspiration began to bead on Essek’s brow as he concentrated on bending one of the most fundamental forces in the universe within a moving target.

“Fjord, Yasha – can you hold its head?”

Essek could just made out Caleb’s words through the roar in his ears.

“No! Keep them back.”

But he had underestimated them. A lasso looped around of the monster’s horns, the charming half-orc and the pink firbolg throwing their weight behind it. Meanwhile, the strangely grey mammoth curled its trunk about a tree, tearing it from the ground to weigh down the creature’s head. Together, they reduced its movements substantially.

Essek cast again – and it was the strongest sensation. The power of the Luxon was pure, mathematical perfection. It had always been so. This time, something was different. The cold winter wind warmed about him and seemed to caress his cheek, and tilt his chin a fraction to the left. And in the corner of his eye, he could have sworn he saw a ghostly hand, cloaked in green, straightening the reach of his casting hand. The threads of fate sparked fuchsia and emerald.

His aim was true.

Gravity flipped within the flesh of the aberration’s brain, a metric ton of unstoppable force suddenly igniting beneath Essek’s will. He poured wave after wave of energy into a minute, hidden cluster of synapses, the neurones become denser than lead, denser than mercury, denser than broken stars… and all at once the creature’s skull caved in, its soft matter eviscerated, its head crumpling like so much tissue paper balled in a fist. And it was done.

The spell keeping Essek afloat failed as gravity ripped back to normality in the space. A cry burst from the drow’s lips before he could control it as legs unable to hold his weight crumbled beneath him. He felt nothing from his knees as they collided with the earth, but the force of the impact ricocheted up a spine newly injured by the creature’s tail.

Before his body could betray him further, before Caleb could lunge for him, before the rest of the Mighty Nein could notice, Essek clicked his fingers and gravity shifted around his form, raising him up to his usual height. He held out a palm before Caleb could touch him.

“Good thinking, getting them to hold it like that. Well done.” As if nothing had happened.

Confusion warred with pride at the praise, and struck the wizard silent. The rest of the party were hardly so obliging – Nott and Jester exclaiming over the mess of the corpse, Caduceus clucking over Beauregard’s injuries as if he himself was not bleeding heavily from his side. Yasha, at least, was quiet, as she transformed back to her humanoid self, and Fjord made his way to her side.

“Caleb, Caleb, did you see?” the goblin woman’s voice demanded, grating in its pitch and thrill.

The moment slid away with Caleb’s gaze. But as it did so, Essek could have sworn he heard a low chuckle in his ear, and the brush of wind once more smooth his hair from his face.

-o-

Higher level spells expended, Essek had no choice but to seek shelter with the Mighty Nein, an experience he was distinctly unsure of how to explain to his superiors when the time came to do so.

They were so loud. And the mountainside cave they had chosen to shelter in only exacerbated that, shrill voices and layered arguments bouncing off each other.

“Essek, come sit with us!” Jester pleaded from her spot cross-legged on the floor, where she was teasing a mangey-looking weasel with a bit of string.

“Thank you, I’m fine,” he replied. The spikes of pain in his back were well above normal levels in the wave of the attack, and were only rising further as adrenaline drained from his system. The very concept of the pressure upon his spine if he sat and lost his personal gravitational field was not something he wanted to contemplate.

“At least stop staring at us like you’re studying us for your next report,” groused Beauregard from where she lounged, bruises and new scar clearly on show, as if they were something to be proud of. Essek merely arched an eyebrow a fraction, arms firmly folded beneath his cloak.

“Eat something at least,” Caduceus urged in his ponderous, resonant tones, offering out a steaming bowl of something that smelled delicious and brought saliva prickling to Essek’s cheeks.

Unable to refuse a third time, the drow drifted forwards to accept the bowl. He methodically, purposefully, made his way through the well-spiced stew, grateful at least for the passing of time, taking them closer to the ragtag group of ‘spies’ falling asleep and leaving him in peace.

But between one spoonful and the next, his eyes caught Caleb’s. They glimmered, amber and black in the firelight and held his gaze, glowing with a new knowledge in precisely the way they did as he learned to snatch fragments of potential from the ether or suspend a chair, weightless, with a palmful of gold. And Essek knew himself to be far more fascinating than parlour tricks like that.

For the first time since he’d teleported on top of a sleeping monstrosity at the Mighty Nein’s instruction, Essek Thyless smiled.


	2. Chapter 2

It took almost an hour for Caleb to pull Essek aside, alone.

“You have done us many favours now Shadowhand,” the wizard said, low and close in the darkness of the cavern. “The debt we owe you is beginning to seem quite daunting. I wonder… ah… would you allow me to begin repayment?”

Intrigued, Essek replied, “And how would you propose doing so?”

Caleb began answering almost before Essek had finished his question. “By taking you out of here. I have rested-” his gaze flicked down to the trailing hem of Essek’s cloak “-In a way I suspect you have not. I can cast a teleportation circle. Take you back home. I’m sure you can’t truly afford to spend the time here with us.”

“There is that,” Essek drawled slowly, watching the wizard’s gaze flickering from side to side, rarely landing close to his eyes. “I hope you are not sentimentalising me Widogast. I do not need looking after.”

“I know that,” breathed Caleb, and their eyes locked. Heat. Hunger. Oh. The human’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Your powers were something to behold today.”

Flattery would get you anywhere. The drow’s lips curled upwards. “We made a good team. Two working as one.” There it was, the flush of red spreading across the human’s cheeks and nose. Essek snapped his voice back to its usual pitch, direct and clear. “You are correct. It is quite the debt you and your friends have accumulated. I’m not sure a simple teleportation spell is going to quite repay it.” A twitch of his fingers summoned an invisible hand that trailed slowly across Caleb’s lower lip. His breathing hitched. “I have some ideas though. You may have to accompany me back.”

-o-

There was so often an awkwardness before first times, when you knew what was coming but had to go through all the protracted rituals leading up to it. Essek had no patience for it after a day such as this. The moment they stepped through the teleportation circle, he accelerated their journey. The moment they stepped through the door to Essek’s home, he turned and pushed Caleb up against the wall.

Velvet smashed against suede as two hard bodies collided.

“What currency should I anticipate this repayment taking?” Essek asked, voice a rumbling growl.

Strong, ash-flecked hands wrapped against the back of Essek’s neck, digging into the prickly, close shorn strands of hair at his nape. The other wrapped around Esseks’ body, secured the hold, locking the two arcanists together.

The surety of the motion cracked the dam of tension that had been building between them for months, and desperation poured forth. Lips collided, teeth clashing, tongues entwining as they surged together, their kisses the centrepiece of a frantic race to see how best their forms could fit as one. _Like this, like this, at last, yes._ Hands flew everywhere, now gripping closer, now edging between to reach more skin, more flesh, more heat. Both bodies rose, fell, writhed, heaved, gasping for air, for relief, for more, filled with the flame of ceaseless arousal skittering under their skin.

“Yes, yes, Caleb, yes,” Essek chanted as the human’s mouth began to shift, to taste, dragging the bristles of his beard in its wake along the Shadowhand’s jaw, to the peak of his ear and down, down to the hollow of the drow’s neck. Fingers – whos? - scrabbled at his buttons, undoing his collar, freeing his skin to the cold air and the ravenous touch.

Under the onslaught of teeth and lips and hands, in the daze of desire and blinding flare of heat, Essek arched into sensation. At the same time, Caleb crushed him closer. “Ah!” The Empire child’s fingers dug wells into bruised flesh, and pain twisted, sharp and raw as vertebrate curved too far back, compressing nerves tight, too tight. The fingers flattened at the exclamation, the bites at his throat gentled into kisses.

“You took” – a kiss to Essek’s collarbone – “some damage” – a kiss to his jugular – “today.” Both hands came up to frame Essek’s cheeks, pads of his fingers delicate and light. “Are you sure I cannot convince you to let me bring a little ease?”

“I told you,” Essek grasped the impertinent wizard’s collar, whiteknuckled and tight. “No sentimentalising.”

Yet Caleb held his gaze, steady. “I’m not offering pity, Shadowhand. I’m offering pleasure, relief. What kind of night will this be if you hurt too much to enjoy it?”

Those lips were there again, those Luxon-foresaken lips, just a hair’s width away, each staccato breath of warm air crossing the divide between their bodies. Caleb’s forehead was creased, eyebrows compressed, as if the waiting was his own private agony. Those unstoppable fingers clenched and unclenched in Essek’s hair, traced and trailed over Essek’s cheek. “Let me serve you, Shadowhand.”

This kiss was not like the others. It was slow and deep and molten. Caleb’s entire body rocked up and close with it, in small, unconscious pulses. And behind the kiss, a well of tenderness, deep beyond fathoming, that Essek could feel himself tumbling into.

When the kiss ended, both had their eyes closed and the decision made. Forehead resting against the human’s, Essek murmured, “Hold tight,” and swept them both towards his bedroom.

Caleb’s eyes hardly flickered around the room. The rapid blue gaze centred entirely on Essek as he began to shed the layers of cloth and fur that had been appropriate for the mountainside but were only obstructions now. Scarred, sun-starved, lightly furred, freckled skin revealed itself in the firelight Essek summoned with a click of his fingers, before releasing the clasp that held his own mantle in place. He knew it would be the first time Caleb would have seen his entire form, defined, but the human’s eyes lit up as Essek wafted closer, taking in the sharp, clean lines of his suit.

“Wunderschön,” came the murmur, indecipherable except in tone. “But remove it.”

A slide of his blackened fingers plucked the buttons aside, pushing the fabric apart. Essek opted not to assist, standing there as gentle touches and carefully planted kisses unravelled and unwrapped him. As his grey-purple skin was exposed, Caleb’s touch was reverent, trailing over the smooth surface of his chest and then his back.

“You will have bruises tomorrow. I am sorry for that,” Caleb whispered, stepping up behind the drow, slotting himself against his back – delicious skin-to-skin contact. The human’s hands did not stop moving, exploring, mapping new ridges and hard edges under taut muscle. With a twitch of his fingers, Essek shifted his gravity until his feet brushed the ground, surrendering more of his weight into Caleb’s arms, tilting his head back onto the wizard’s shoulder, basking in the reverence and the twin warmth of flesh and fire until his pulsed had slowed and his world had narrowed to nothing more than the gentle touch.

“To bed, I think, was our purpose.” Essek felt the rumble of Caleb’s words through his skin as much as he heard it.

“Please,” the Shadowhand begged.

With steps that could have been choreographed, and the use of a well-practiced Mage Hand, the couple shed the rest of their clothing and drifted towards the bed. Essek lay back amongst the wealth of pillows, and Caleb almost immediately covered his body with his own. For the first time, the human’s hands caressed the skin of the drow’s thin thighs, testing, expression questioning.

“Your touch is not well-spent there, Widogast. I cannot feel it.” The hand moved slowly. In the half-light, Essek could see the gradual shift of Caleb’s elbow and after a moment, felt living nerves begin to spark weakly once more at the edge of his most extended finger.

“And here?” There was a grin more wicked than the drow had ever seen playing at the human’s lips as his hand slid up a slightly hardened cock.

“No. Not there either.”

“Alright.” Essek lifted his chin, braced for the disappointment, the judgement, the pity, but found none. Just acknowledgement of information. “On your front, Shadowhand.”

Essek cautiously rearranged himself and, after a minute of rustling, Caleb was back at his side and a heady, herbal scent came with him, followed by the sound of slick hands rubbing together.

“I want you to feel good. Direct me as you desire.”

“You’ve always been an able pupil.”

Then Caleb’s hands were there, and Essek closed his eyes.

The touch was light at first, tentative, almost teasing as oil dripped in warm splashes across Essek’s back. Fingers slipped and danced in the liquid, trailing it across taut shoulders and expanding ribs, before being spread in slow, deliberate lines across the middle of the drow’s torso in an even, complex, geometric shape.

“Sacrilege,” Essek muttered into the nest of his arms.

“At the same time as treason,” Caleb’s voice rippled with laughter. “Efficient.” Then his thumbs began to press into the Shadowhand’s back, smoothing the planes of his flesh.

The pressure was delicious as Caleb mapped the maze of nerves and knots of ligaments hidden beneath the drow’s glistening skin. When he approached the bruises, hot and tender, left by the monstrosity’s tail, he was gentle, circular motions restrained to the edges of the discolouration or featherlight. When he reached the tangle of tension at the base of Essek’s neck, he was firm and determined, the pleasure and pain rising and receding as one beneath his ministrations.

Long minutes spiralled away in that dim room, measured only by the consumption of the fire and the drow’s shallow breaths in time to the human’s rhythmic movements. Those clever hands, infused with the hum and heat of Empire magic, smoothed up Essek’s spine in broad strokes that had the drow’s stomach muscles contracting, and pressed deep into nubs of pain, persistent cores of strain, in circles that had Essek struggling not to groan into his pillows at the ache that spiralled and concentrated beneath Caleb’s fingertips, and at the blissful relief when it was finally smoothed away. 

As the touch reached the place that sensation ended for the drow, a whimper began to build in his throat. Caleb must have noticed the whining note in his breath, the clutch of his fingers against the sheets, for he paused his movement. “All gut?”

“Sensitive. Good. Gut. Don’t stop.”

“Only if you let me hear you.”

Panting, caught up in the worship, Essek turned his head to the side to let the fragments of his moans be heard as they fell from his lips.

Some of Caleb’s touches fell into nothingness, but that sharp Zemnian mind tracked the Shadowhand’s reaction, the bow of his neck, the furrow of his brow, the length of his silence, until he had perfected his knowledge and Essek was twitching and trembling beneath him.

“Let me kiss you. Caleb. Stop, let me…” Essek didn’t want to be done to anymore, he wanted to be _with._

He twisted his newly pliant body round and took in the sight of his human wizard. Blue eyes blown dark with lust, checks flushed, cock hanging heavy and pulsing between his legs. Essek propped himself upwards with one hand and grasped at Caleb’s shining tumble of hair to crash their bodies and mouths together once more.

Caleb’s hunger roiled beneath the carapace of his skin, hardly contained, that wanting, untouched body shifting as incessantly, as desperate as Essek’s. The slip of a hand between the human’s legs, a single squeeze elicited the most beautiful, broken wail.

Something primal roared in Essek’s chest. “I’m going to fuck you until all Rosohna hears that cry.”


End file.
